


i wanna tell you but i don't know how

by whataboutmycape



Series: i see stars in you [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M, fictional illness, unrequited freewood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 19:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9339482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whataboutmycape/pseuds/whataboutmycape
Summary: you made flowers grow in my lungs, and although they are beautiful, i cannot breathe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song neptune by sleeping at last! this idea comes from a friend of mine talking about a fic she started writing dealing with hanahaki disease, and talking about it gave me the idea for this. hope you enjoy!

Gavin’s chest is aching. 

He is trying to hide it, trying to choke down the roots he can feel creeping up his throat, trying to breathe past the leaves and the petals and the seeds filtering through his veins.

Sometimes, when he’s alone and just so tired of fighting it, he gags and gags and gags until there are yellow tulips escaping from his mouth. They are some of the most beautiful flowers Gavin has ever seen, and he can’t help but feel like crying every time he sees that bright, unmistakable yellow. 

Gavin is dying. 

He can feel the roots pushing against the walls of his lungs, stronger everyday, and he knows that they’re going to puncture his organs soon. He can hear the rattle in his chest, the stray seeds windmilling around in the space with every breath he takes. He can see it in the increasing volumes of petals he is coughing up. 

It’s getting hard to hide, now. 

Twice this week he has had to excuse himself in the middle of conversations to make his way to the bathroom so he can hunch over a toilet and heave until the flowers come out. There are too many of them, now, and he’s struggling to choke them down.   His wheezing is becoming noticeable. He can’t fight down the tears in his eyes anymore whenever he sees that shade of yellow. 

Geoff notices it first. 

For all the guys and the audience tease him about how oblivious he can be, Geoff has a sharp attention where it matters. He doesn’t say anything at work, but he catches Gavin before the lad can duck out of the door at the end of the day and invites him over for dinner. 

Gavin tries to shake off the arm that Geoff drapes across his shoulders, tries to fumble his way through an excuse, but Geoff just presses his lips together and squeezes his shoulder even harder, and Gavin knows there’s no getting out of it. 

In the car, he just feels sick. He feels miserable, because he realizes that he hasn’t been over Geoff’s house in ages, can’t even remember the last time he saw Griffon, and he knows he’s dying. He’s dying and he tried not to worry anyone, but good fucking job he’s done of that. Geoff keeps glancing over at him and Gavin just leans his head against the glass window and tries not to throw up. 

The thing is this: Gavin is dying of a broken heart, and there’s nothing anyone can do to save him.  

Gavin fell so far in love with someone that flowers started to bloom inside of his chest. The seeds were planted in his lungs and the longer Gavin’s love went unanswered, the longer the flowers grew. Roots started to take hold in his lungs and the seeds sprouted and the stems shot up until Gavin could feel flower petals tickling his throat, but still, Gavin’s love didn’t go away and it didn’t find a home. So the flowers continued to grow, expanding and unfurling inside of him, until it all became too much and he started coughing up tulips. 

He hid it as much as he could because there is nothing to be done about it. Gavin’s love is unrequited, and so his cure does not exist. The saddest part of it all is this: 

if Gavin could undo every step of his love, knowing that it would mean these flowers would never start growing, would never start to overrun his body, would never start to kill him - Gavin wouldn’t. If he could chose to get rid of his love, he would say no. 

They say to find what you love and let it kill you. Gavin guesses they didn’t mean to take it so literally, but. Here he is. 

Geoff pulls up in front of his house and parks the car and Gavin is only subtly aware of it. His breath is only coming to him now in short gasps, and they sound awful, like they’re ripping themselves out of his throat. It doesn’t help that he started to cry and now his chest is heaving as he sobs, breath fogging up the glass on the window. Geoff cuts the engine and for a second the only sound in the car is the rattle of Gavin’s lungs. 

Gavin is scared. He doesn’t want to die this way, feeling scared and guilty and alone. He regrets hiding this for so long, regrets pushing everyone so far away. He doesn’t want his last memories to be full of fear. He pushes himself up and off the glass and he turns to find Geoff watching him with sad eyes and Gavin shudders through a breath, hiccuping, trying to stop crying long enough to talk. 

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing he can get out, and it makes Geoff look guilty and Gavin’s mind is racing at a mile a minute, trying to find the words to tell Geoff that none of this is his fault. “Can we go inside?” Is what he settles on, and Geoff nods his head. They both get out of the car without saying another word. 

&

The story goes like this: 

Gavin meets Ryan on a sunny day during the summer of 2011. They don’t get to talk that long, Ryan just stopped by the Achievement Hunter office to meet everyone before he had to go work on something down in animation. Gavin can’t stop thinking about him for the rest of the day. 

The flowers start growing in 2012, after they move offices for the first time. 

When Gavin notices them, he wants to scream. He wishes for them to be for someone else, that he really loves someone else, _not Ryan, please, not Ryan,_ but Gavin knew before they started growing that he was entirely and irrevocably fucked. 

Gavin isn’t an idiot. Ryan is married, married _with children._ Gavin knows, but he still god damn went and fell in love with him anyway. For the first year, the pains and the aches and the vomiting feel like the the punishment he deserves for falling in love with someone he shouldn’t have. 

The worst part of it all is that Gavin doesn’t regret it. If he could have chosen anyone to have to fall in love with this way, he would’ve picked Ryan every time. 

Gavin makes it to 2017 before his lungs start to give out. By now, the whole crew knows that medically, something is wrong with him. They know that he is sick, and they know that he is dying. Geoff is the only one who knows the reason why. 

Gavin sees Ryan for the last time on a sunny day during the summer of 2017. He films one last video, a short one, to say goodbye to everyone. He knows that once he leaves the office tonight, he will not be coming back in tomorrow. 

Gavin passes away in his apartment on an afternoon in late July. 

They bury him with yellow tulips in his hands.  

**Author's Note:**

> ahhh i hope you guys liked it. i'm still not 100% in love with the ending, but if i kept fiddling with it i never would have uploaded this. if you want to talk more, find me on tumblr @agent-jersey!


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